john L. volakis
Florida International University, USA
Fabrication Challenges and Digital Twin-Models for High Density Heterogeneous Packaging of RF/mm-Wave Transceivers
The rapid evolution of wireless millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) links has provided an impetus to develop low power ultra-wideband (UWB) transceiver systems that are scalable for various applications. Designing and optimizing such systems pose formidable challenges. This presentation will present design methodologies for vertical heterogenous packaging of high-density RF/mm-Wave transceivers that combine high power and low power components, and discuss related EMI/EMC challenges and mitigation techniques. The latter will include new 5μm composite magneto-dielectric material films for decades in dB attenuation and new packaging topologies for denser packaging integration. Examples of design and fabrication challenges for on-Chip integrated antenna arrays will be discussed. They include ultrawideband apertures and reflectarrays operating across 25:1 bandwidth and even greater, digital beamformers and analog front-end RF circuits with reconfiguration as well as simultaneous transmit-receive radios (STAR) and miniature medical implants. Vertically integrated mm-Wave arrays will be shown via a two-step fabrication using ball grid arrays (BGAs) to separate the RF front-end from the feeding and beamforming circuits. Also, embedded integration will be addressed along with unique adaptive patterning techniques to accommodate for die-shift considering RF performance metrics. When working with high density RF packages, Digital Twin (DT) design methods are favorable in addressing RF package complexity. A digital twin is a virtual model designed to accurately reflect a physical object and predict its performance in realistic settings. It consists of three facets: 1) Digital representation, 2) Modeling of the operational/measurement device data of its real-world counterpart, and 3) Virtual models of several digital components, forming a functioning system to study/predict performance issues. In this talk, a digital twin model is adapted to examine and optimize the performance of an entire RF transceivers for low level signal detection using strong modulation schemes. Transceiver optimization is discussed in presence of interference signals and signal-noise-ratios (SNR) variability. Also, performance is examined across different hardware and multiple signal receptions within a wide operational bandwidth.
John L. Volakis is a Professor in the College of Engineering and Computing at Florida International University (FIU). From 2017-2023, he was the Dean of Engineering and Computing where he grew the College’s research by over 200% and increased three-fold the 4-year graduation rates. He is an IEEE, AAAS, NAI, URSI and ACES Fellow. Prior to coming to FIU, he was the Roy and Lois Chope Chair in Engineering at Ohio State and a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept. (2003-2017). He is currently an Emeritus faculty at Ohio State. He also served as the Director of the Ohio State Univ. ElectroScience Laboratory for 14 years. His career spans 2 years at Boeing, 19 years on the faculty at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and 15 years at Ohio State. At Michigan he also served as the Director of the Radiation Laboratory (1998-2000). Prof. Volakis has 40 years of engineering research experience, and has published over 450 journal papers, nearly 1000 conference papers, and over 30 chapters. Among his many leadership positions, he served as the 2004 IEEE APS President and as the Vice Chair/Chair of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI)-Commission B from 2017-2024. In 2004, he was listed by ISI Web of Science as one of the top 250 most referenced authors, and his google h-index=82 with over 32,000 citations. He mentored nearly 110 Ph.Ds/Post-Docs and has written with them 46 papers which received best paper awards. He is one of the most active researchers in electromagnetics, RF materials and metamaterials, antennas and phased array, RF transceivers, textile electronics, millimeter waves and terahertz, EMI/EMC as well as EM diffraction and computational methods. He is also the authors of 9 books, including the Antenna Handbook, referred to as the “antenna bible.” His research team is recognized for introducing and/or developing 1) hybrid finite method for microwave engineering, now defacto methods in commercial RF design packages with over 6 million google hits, 2) novel composite materials for antennas & sensor miniaturization, 3) a new class of wideband conformal antennas and arrays with over 30:1 of contiguous bandwidth, referred to as tightly coupled dipole antennas garnering several million google hits , 4) textile surfaces for wearable electronics and sensors, 5) battery-less and wireless medical implants for non-invasive brain signal collection, 6) diffraction coefficients for material coated edges, and for 7) model-based radar scattering verification methods.